It all began 46 years ago on Atlantic Boulevard in Lynwood, California. A then-9-year-old Jim McNiel had started riding his bike up Atlantic to the local hobby shop. Then his trip took him by a most unusual enterprise.

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"The building was full of cars being worked on," recalls McNiel, "and I would lean in as far as I could without them yelling at me." The year was 1952, and two of the guys working on those cars were brothers by the name of Sam and George Barris. "I don't remember if they were customizing Bob Hirohata's '51 Mercury," says the guy who would acquire the famed custom seven years later and keep it to this very day. "But it had to be a part of the mix."

We understand Hirohata bought the Merc from an elderly couple with the intention of having the Barris brothers duplicate the swoopy hardtop look they worked on Nick Matranga's '40 Merc. Some 97 days later, the '51 was completed in time for Petersen's '52 Motorama, a car show that served as a prelude to its subsequent Los Angeles-to-Indy cruise (1953) and a starring role in the film Running Wild (1955).

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Stylewise, the '51 boasted a more elaborate redesign and configuration than its contemporaries-the beginning of a movement that would lead customizers away from the more traditional chopped and channeled shapes. However, Hirohata soon tired of the renowned trendsetter and let it go.

Jump to 1959, when, as luck would have it, the 16-year-old McNiel was pedaling down Alondra Boulevard on his way to his gas station job when he spotted the famed custom at Bob's Automotive in Lynwood. He was in high school at the time and saving up for his "first" ride. Still a big Barris fan, McNiel casually mentioned to his custom-loving brother, Bob, that the car was for sale. His brother agreed to check it out and after one look proclaimed, "You need that car!"

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Imagine what a hoot it must have been to drive the country's most famous custom, first to high school, then to a job on a daily basis! By 1964, McNiel had decided to freshen up the Merc. But he got married instead, and, in his words, "My family came first."

So the '51 was relegated to one stall of the family's two-car garage, while the other stall hosted a parade of roadster projects. If the truth were to be told, McNiel is a roadster guy: "Those customs are hard to drive, see out of, and turn. Roadsters, on the other hand, are cars you can jump in and go!" Obviously, McNiel is a kindred soul.

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The Mercury's existence was common Southern California lore, but who owned it and where it was housed were secrets to all but a few. Still, the historical significance of the legendary Merc began to eat at McNiel. He was in the initial stages of a rebuild when then-Rod & Custom editor Pat Ganahl walked into McNiel's Orange, California, garage.

"Pat caught me at a good time," says the now-54-year-old McNiel. "People thought I was crazy for not fixing it, and I was feeling guilty about not having the car out there. So Pat's interest in its rebuilding was the last straw."

Note that we use the term "rebuild," and not "restore," to describe the overall overhaul. There's a simple reason for this semantic selection: The car has remained 95 percent original. So the plan was to keep it as pure as possible, as if Hirohata had handed over the keys in 1955 and said, "It's yours."

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McNiel has spent the past nine years doing just that, making the car the most historically correct custom in the country. He has kept and used every original part, including the fasteners, wiring terminals, brake shoes, and hose clamps. Since 1989, he has simply cleaned and repainted each part (to the tempo of early R&B or Chicago-style blues), replacing the elements he deemed worn out, edgy, or incorrect. When he couldn't do the work himself, he consulted those former Barris employees who could.

For example, along the way the Merc acquired a set of '55 Caddy hubcaps. McNiel replaced them with a set of correct '52 Caddy "Sombreros." The damaged taillight lens, the missing bumper guards, and the missing exhaust tip were replaced or rebuilt by Frank Sonzagni, a former Barris employee who worked on the car in 1952.

The big rub was the paint. As McNiel and his wife, Susan, stripped the paint down to the metal, they stopped along the way to take samples of the three different paint jobs. When they reached the original paint on the passenger-side door, they polished the door and took it to Stan Betz (Anaheim, California), who color-matched the Barris coating combo-an unusual mix (for that time) of ice green and forest green.

McNiel had planned to paint the car himself in his garage. In fact, it was ready for color, but then fate intervened a second time. The car was scheduled to be part of the Hot Rods and Customs exhibition at the Oakland Museum in California, and McNiel was running out of time to get the painting done. So he called up "Junior" Herschel Conway (another former Barris employee) and asked for help. Junior first offered to let McNiel use his House of Colors (Bell Gardens, California) paint booth, then upon seeing the car for the first time in 43 years, volunteered to paint it himself.

One week later, the Merc was on its way to Oakland in a near repeat of a sequence of events 46 years ago. Back then, former tech editor W.G. "Racer" Brown captured the Mercury for the March 1953 issue, just after Petersen's '52 Motorama. That shoot made hot rodding's most famous custom an integral part of HOT ROD's initial 16-page roto section.

InteriorMaterial: Green-and-white tuck-and-roll vinyl with original Carson headliner; Eddie Martinez was the trimmer (he was trained by Louie Chavez, the original Gaylord employee who trimmed the car in 1952)Dash: Stock with original gauges, plastic knobs by Hirohata
Steering wheel: Stock